Law Justice Brett Kavanaugh Megathread - Megathread for Brett Kavanaugh, US Supreme Court Justice

they're good justices, brentt

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/05/trump-picks-brett-kavanaugh-for-supreme-court.html

President Donald Trump has picked Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge with extensive legal credentials and a lengthy political record, to succeed Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the Supreme Court, NBC News reported.

Kavanaugh, 53, is an ideological conservative who is expected to push the court to the right on a number of issues including business regulation and national security. The favorite of White House Counsel Donald McGahn, Kavanaugh is also considered a safer pick than some of the more partisan choices who were on the president’s shortlist.

A graduate of Yale Law School who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Kavanaugh has the traditional trappings of a presidential nominee to the high court.


If confirmed, the appellate judge would become the second young, conservative jurist Trump has put on the top U.S. court during his first term. Kavanaugh's confirmation would give the president an even bigger role in shaping U.S. policy for decades to come. The potential to morph the federal judiciary led many conservatives to support Trump in 2016, and he has not disappointed so far with the confirmation of conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and numerous federal judges.

At times, he has diverged from the Republican party’s ideological line on important cases that have come before him, including on the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 health care law which Kavanaugh has declined to strike down on a number of occasions in which it has come before him.

Anti-abortion groups quietly lobbied against Kavanaugh, pushing instead for another jurist on Trump’s shortlist, 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett, ABC News reported in the run-up to Trump’s announcement.

Kavanaugh received his current appointment in 2006 after five years in the George W. Bush administration, where he served in a number of roles including staff secretary to the president. He has been criticized for his attachment to Bush, as well as his involvement in a number of high-profile legal cases.

For instance, Kavanaugh led the investigation into the death of Bill Clinton’s Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster, and assisted in Kenneth Starr’s 1998 report outlining the case for Clinton’s impeachment.

Democrats criticized Kavanaugh’s political roles during his 2006 confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Your experience has been most notable, not so much for your blue chip credentials, but for the undeniably political nature of so many of your assignments,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said at the time.

“From the notorious Starr report, to the Florida recount, to the President’s secrecy and privilege claims, to post-9/11 legislative battles including the Victims Compensation Fund, to ideological judicial nomination fights, if there has been a partisan political fight that needed a very bright legal foot soldier in the last decade, Brett Kavanaugh was probably there,” Schumer said.

Kavanaugh's work on the Starr report has been scrutinized by Republicans who have said it could pose trouble for the president as he negotiates with special counsel Robert Mueller over the terms of a possible interview related to Mueller's Russia probe. The 1998 document found that Clinton's multiple refusals to testify to a grand jury in connection with Starr's investigation were grounds for impeachment.

In later years, Kavanaugh said that Clinton should not have had to face down an investigation during his presidency. He has said the indictment of a president would not serve the public interest.

Like Trump's first nominee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, Kavanaugh clerked for Kennedy. If he is confirmed, it will mark the first time ever that a current or former Supreme Court justice has two former clerks become justices, according to an article by Adam Feldman, who writes a blog about the Supreme Court.

Kavanaugh teaches courses on the separation of powers, the Supreme Court, and national security at Harvard Law School and Yale Law School, and does charitable work at St. Maria’s Meals program at Catholic Charities in Washington, D.C., according to his official biography.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...ett-kavanaugh-nomination-by-a-28-point-margin

After a blistering confirmation battle, Justice Brett Kavanaugh will take his seat for oral arguments on the U.S. Supreme Court with a skeptical public, a majority of which opposed his nomination. However, Democrats may not be able to exploit this fact in the upcoming elections as much as they hope, because the independent voters overwhelmingly disapprove of their own handling of the nomination by a 28-point margin, a new CNN/SSRS poll finds.

Overall, just 41 percent of those polled said they wanted to see Kavanaugh confirmed, compared to 51 percent who said they opposed his confirmation. In previous CNN polls dating back to Robert Bork in 1987, no nominee has been more deeply underwater.

What's interesting, however, is even though Democrats on the surface would seem to have public opinion on their side, just 36 percent approved of how they handled the nomination, compared to 56 percent who disapproved. (Republicans were at 55 percent disapproval and 35 percent approval). A further breakdown finds that 58 percent of independents disapproved of the way the Democrats handled the nomination — compared to 30 percent who approved. (Independents also disapproved of Republicans handling of the matter, but by a narrower 53 percent to 32 percent margin).

Many people have strong opinions on the way the Kavanaugh nomination will play out in November and who it will benefit. The conventional wisdom is that it will help Democrats in the House, where there are a number of vulnerable Republicans in suburban districts where losses among educated women could be devastating, and that it will help Republicans in the Senate, where the tossup races are in red states where Trump and Kavanaugh are more popular.

That said, it's clear that the nomination energized both sides, and that the tactics pursued by the parties turned off independent voters in a way that makes it much harder to predict how this will end up affecting election outcomes.
 
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Are you just going to keep switching goalposts? I gave an example of how the left has extended an olive branch.
No, you didn't. You just made a bare assertion of Kavanaugh's guilt with no evidence to back it up whatsoever.

And...

Wait...

I remember...

OH GOD...!

YOU FUCKING MOLESTED ME WHEN I WAS FIVE!

@Rumpled Foreskin YOU ARE A FUCKING CHILD MOLESTER!
 
There's a reason the left and it's associated media arms quietly but constantly seethes veiled hatred for her, but can't quite come out and say it..... ditto Colin Powell.

The left won't even acknowledge the existence of Thomas Sowell, who's a very interesting thinker, because he's black and his arguments are impossible for them to argue with.
 

In 1999, he co-authored an amicus brief with Robert Bork for the Center for Equal Opportunity in preparation for the Supreme Court case of Rice v. Cayetano. Rice sued the Governor of Hawaii for restricting his right to vote in Office of Hawaiian Affairs elections because Rice was of European decent and not Polynesian. The brief argued that the racial qualification for voting violated the 14th and 15th amendment.

https://www.findlawimages.com/efile/supreme/briefs/98-818/98-818fo3/98-818fo3.pdf

He also wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal where he disagreed with Native Hawaiians being considered in the same category as American Indian tribes.

https://turtletalk.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/are_hawaiians_indians_the_jus.pdf

The Supreme Court ended up ruling 7-2 in favor of Rice.

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/528/495/case.pdf

Edit to add exchange with Senator Maize Hirono from Wednesday and an e-mail she leaked about his views on government programs targeting Native Hawaiians

Hirono:
In the piece you wrote, the Native Hawaiian community was not indigenous because, as you say, after all, they came from Polynesia. It might interest you to know that Hawaii is part of Polynesia so it's not that they came from Polynesia, they were a part of Polynesia. ... You also implied that Native Hawaiians couldn't qualify as an Indian tribe and therefore were not entitled to constitutional protections given to indigenous Americans (cont.).



Hirono: It is hard to believe you spent any time researching the history of Native Hawaiians.

Hirono also referenced an email Kavanaugh sent in 2002 saying, "Any programs targeting Native Hawaiians as a group is subject to strict scrutiny and of questionable volatility under the constitution."


Hirono: Do you think Rice v. Cayetano raises constitutional questions when Congress passes laws to benefit Native Hawaiians?

Kavanaugh: I think Congress' power, with respect to an issue like that, is substantial. I don't want to pre-commit to any particular program, but I understand that Congress has substantial power with respect to declaring, recognizing tribes.

Hirono: But you believe that any of these kinds of programs or laws passed by Congress should undergo strict scrutiny and raises constitutional questions?

Kavanaugh: As I sit here today as a judge, I would listen to arguments 16 years ago ... but if I were a judge, I would listen to the arguments to your question, Congress has substantial power with respect to programs like this. I appreciate what you've said about Native Hawaiians ...


Kavanaugh: I think Congress has substantial power of course in this area that you're discussing and I would want to hear more about how Rice applies. I would want to hear the arguments on both sides. I would keep an open mind and appreciate your perspective on this question. ...


Hirono: I think you have a problem here. Your view is that Hawaiians don't deserve protections as indigenous people under the constitution and your argument raises a serious question on how you would vote on the constitutionality of programs benefiting Alaska natives. I think that my colleagues from Alaska should be deeply troubled by your views.

http://archive.is/8lAPH
 
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believe-her.jpg
 
How is it baiting? I’m a registered Democrat and a male feminist.
“Lol he’s saying stuff we disagree with so he must be trying to ruffle some feathers”.
:story:
Republicans, I swear.
im neither, i just live man, try not to worry about shit

i just call people out in shit, when their bullshitting.
 
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Liberal journalists are losing their shit. Roe v Wade is apparently already gone and Kavanaugh hasn’t even been confirmed yet.


Damn “White Women”!!!!
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Even in this dude's avatar he looks like he's cowering in fear. I have the urge to give him a wedgie and steal his lunch money.
 
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